“Colonel Pratt had once told Calvino that he reminded him of the kind of guy who walked into a dynamite warehouse and lit a match to see where he was going. After he lit the first match and looked around at the stacks of dynamite, he’d wait until the match burned down to fingernail-igniting length, and then he’d strike another match.”

Book Review:

Review by Lynn Harnett  (NOV 21, 2010)

Having succeeded so spectacularly in his last case that he’s forced to hightail it out of Bangkok for a spell, PI Vincent Calvino begins his tenth adventure contemplating an expensive case of scotch and the view from his hotel suite in the seaside tourist destination of Pattaya.

Having also saved his satisfied new client from a drive-by assassination, Calvino is anticipating the juicy steak that’s next on his agenda when a beautiful woman falls past his balcony to her death. Calvino is so deeply implicated in her murder that it takes his friend Colonel Pratt to extricate him.

What makes it even more personal is that Calvino was attracted to the woman, though some troubled quality had warned him off: “He reminded himself of Calvino’s law: Act on impulse when betting on a horse, but never with a woman. A horse never drags a man into its life. It either wins or loses the race. A man can spend an afternoon at the track and, eight races later, count his money and know whether he has won or not. With a woman it’s never that simple. With a woman the numbers never add up.”

Intimidating the Pattaya police into freeing Calvino, Pratt warns his friend against returning to Bangkok, where he’s sure the danger remains most acute. But Calvino has cases to solve and bills to pay.

Meanwhile there are a couple of American mercenaries from an outfit similar to Blackwater who’ve come to town on a mission. The American black-ops are following a code of ‘paying back Jack;’ doing a favor for a friend in need. That this favor happens to be the assassination of a Thai politician makes their mission no less noble and manly. That they do, at least at first, fail, is a given or there would be a lot less story.

American ex-pat Moore switches viewpoints among his characters, revealing connections and crossing paths and making the mystery more complex with every revelation. Much of the wit and nuance depends on the difference in thinking between East and West, a difference that often drives the plot:

“No one would ever question the decision to keep Calvino in the room since it’s easier for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a Thai to step forward and reverse a decision.”

Moore’s depiction of Thai life is gritty, colorful and thoughtful. He ranges from the sex trade to politics to the careful and lavish preparations for an upper-class wedding, while never losing track of his fast-paced, hard-boiled story.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 10 readers
PUBLISHER:	Grove Press (November 9, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Lynn Harnett
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Christopher G. Moore
EXTRAS:	Wikipedia on Christopher G. Moore
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More Thai life: Queen of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan The Godfather of Katmandu by John Burdett Skytrain to Murder by Dean Barrett

Bibliography:

The Vincent Calvino P.I. Series:

• Spirit House (1992)
• Asia Hand (1993)
• Zero Hour in Phnom (1994)
• Comfort Zone (1995)
• The Big Weird (1996)
• Cold Hit (1999)
• Minor Wife (2002)
• Pattaya 24/7 (2004)
• The Risk of Infidelity Index (2007)
• Paying Back Jack (2008; October 2009 in US)
• The Corruptionist (2009)
• 9 Gold Bullets (2010)

The Land of Smiles series:

• A Killing Smile (1992)
• A Bewitching Smile (1992)
• A Haunting Smile (1993)

Other:

• His Lordship’s Arsenal (1985)
• God of Darkness (1998)
• Chairs: Stories (2000)
• Tokyo Joe (1990) (a.k.a. Enemies of Memory)
• Waiting for the Lady (2003)
• Red Sky Falling (1994)  (a.k.a. Saint Anne)
• Gambling on Magic (2005)

Non-fiction:

• Heart Talk: Say What You Feel in Thai (1992)
• The Vincent Calvino Reader’s Guide (2010)

“I let one of the men rename me. A man gave me the name Rose – you didn’t know that, did you, Poke?…He said, this man, he said that Kwan was too hard to remember, even though it’s a good name and it means ‘spirit,’ and that the rose was the queen of flowers and I was the queen of Patpong.” She laughs, rough as a cough. “The queen of Patpong. A kingdom of whores and viruses. Death with a smile.”

Book Review:

Review by Lynn Harnett  (OCT 23, 2010)

The fourth in Hallinan’s involving Poke Rafferty Bangkok thriller series finds the American travel writer enjoying family life with new wife Rose and adopted daughter Miaow.

Miaow, a former street kid, now attends a multi-national private school where, determined to be like everybody else, she’s renamed herself Mia. Rose is Rose, tall, edgy, beautiful, happy in her newfound domesticity. Then a blast from her bargirl past turns up and in minutes there’s blood drawn and terror in their hearts.

James Horner, big, handsome and with private military skills, has a special grudge against Rose since she once tried to kill him. Rose isn’t saying much more than that, at least not until Rafferty has a couple more run-ins with Horner and his equally menacing sidekick. As a writer, Rafferty tends to meet brawn with brain, which is a lot of fun for the reader and still generates plenty of bloody action.

But with her family falling apart and another innocent girl hurt because she helped Rafferty, Rose decides to tell her story – which takes up the middle of the book.

Hallinan’s empathetic prose keeps this familiar story fresh – a bright, impoverished village girl, who runs away to escape being sold by her alcoholic father. We get a vivid picture of the gradations of bargirls – Kwan (Rose’s real name), more beautiful than most, has more choices. Hallinan takes us behind the scenes, giving us the girls’ point of view. Kwan’s story, full of pathos, friendship, and street-wise education, punctuated with occasional cruelty and common perils, builds to a crescendo of terror that makes it clear that Horner will stop at nothing to kill her. So Rafferty has to act, not just react.

With the help of his police friend and fellow Shakespeare aficionado, Arthit, Rafferty devises a plan. Trouble is Horner isn’t just big, he’s smart too, and much more ruthless than Rafferty. Hallinan meshes action, craftiness and the Bangkok streets to build to a white-knuckled and satisfying conclusion.

Hallinan knows his city, immersing us in Rafferty’s milieu of bar girls, school plays, cops and neighborliness. Miaow’s adolescent rebelliousness, her ardent and sometimes heartless desire to leave her streetwise past behind and be just like every other middleclass girl, and her endearing smarts all ring true.

Fans will be especially pleased to know more of Rose’s back-story, but first time readers will find themselves right at home in this exotic world.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 60 readers
PUBLISHER:	William Morrow (August 17, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Lynn Harnett
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Tim Hallinan
EXTRAS:	Queen of Patpong video on YouTube
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Nail Through the Heart The Fourth Estate Breathing Water A previous interview with Timothy Hallinan New series: Crashed

Bibliography:

Poke Rafferty, Bangkok series:

• Nail Through the Heart (2007)
• The Fourth Watcher (2008)
• Breathing Water (2009)
• The Queen of Patpong (2010)
• The Fear Artist (July 2012)

Junior Bender, Burglar series:

• Crashed (2010)
• Little Elvises (2011)
• The Fame Thief (July 2013)

Simeon Grist, Los Angeles series:

• The Four Last Things (1989)
• Everything But the Squeal (1990)
• Skin Deep (1991)
• Incinerator (1992)
• The Bone Polisher (1993)
• The Man with No Time (1994)

“Hearing Miaow refer to herself as his daughter makes Rafferty smile, although he knows she won’t like his smile any more than she seems to like anything else these days.”

Book Review:

Review by Lynn Harnett (AUG 17, 2010)

Hallinan sets a breakneck pace in his third to feature American ex-pat and longtime Bangkok resident, Poke Rafferty. Married to Rose, a tall, confident Thai beauty, and adoptive father of Miaow, a precocious former street child, Rafferty gets involved in a poker sting while working on a book about crooks called Living Wrong.

But in addition to the marks, an extra player shows up, big, drunk and dangerous. Khun Pan, rich and ruthless, loses and takes it badly. Pan is the sort of man who grinds an expensive cigar out on a rare carpet just to flaunt his vulgar origins. To diffuse a violent outcome to the evening, Rafferty sets up one last bet and wins the right to write Pan’s biography, a heretofore forbidden project.

The next morning the project is plastered all over the morning papers and Rafferty soon gets two calls threatening his family. One insists that he drop the project; the other insists that he go on with it, using a list of sources best labeled “Pan’s enemies.”

Unfortunately, they both seem to have the clout and manpower to carry out their threats. His home is bugged, his family’s movements watched, he is followed and abducted at will from the street. On the defensive, reacting rather than acting, Rafferty knows he needs to gain control, to stop this scrabbling up a slippery slope in the dark.

First he visits Pan. Who lives in a marble mansion surrounded by two creation scenes – a theme park version of the Garden of Eden and a replica of the rickety farm village he came from, complete with pigsty, which has been allowed to ripen specially for the big charity bash he’s throwing.

Rafferty’s wife Rose is thrilled to be invited to the party. A child of rural poverty herself, she admires Pan – a man who came from nothing and hasn’t forgotten; whose good deeds are famous among the poor. She makes a mighty impression and leaves the party with an even higher opinion of Pan, hero of the downtrodden.

Then Rafferty begins digging into Pan’s past. A crime boss who rises into the upper echelons of the powerful doesn’t do it without help. What happened during the gap in Pan’s life – what’s the mystery that gave him disfiguring burns and set him on the path to legitimacy and political power?

He also begins exerting control on his surroundings, putting to work what he’s learned from the Thais about avoiding confrontations and showing a good face to the world. In all this he gets a lot of help – from Rose and Miaow (when she’s not acting like a brat), from his friend Arthit, a force to be reckoned with in the police and from Superman, the leader of a street gang of homeless urchins (reminiscent of the Baker Street Irregulars) – a crew that will be familiar to readers of the previous two books.

Suplots involving Arthit and his dying wife and Superman and a new street girl up from the country (like Pan and Rose), snared by a criminal gang and set out with a baby to beg, deepen the impact of a novel that offers complex characters and insight into Thai culture, Bangkok politics, human ruthlessness and the resourcefulness of those with nothing – some of them anyway.

Rafferty is a clever character with a flair for risk and a wry humor. His wife and daughter are equally appealing and the book crackles with wit, action and pulse-pounding suspense, strengthened by its emotional engagement.

Those who like John Burdett’s Bangkok novels will enjoy Hallinan’s as well – possibly more.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 35 readers
PUBLISHER:	Harper Paperbacks; Reprint edition (August 17, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Lynn Harnett
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Tim Hallinan
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Nail Through the Heart The Fourth Estate The Queen of Patpong New series: Crashed

Bibliography:

Poke Rafferty, Bangkok series:

• Nail Through the Heart (2007)
• The Fourth Watcher (2008)
• Breathing Water (2009)
• The Queen of Patpong (2010)
• The Fear Artist (July 2012)

Junior Bender, Burglar series:

• Crashed (2010)
• Little Elvises (2011)
• The Fame Thief (July 2013)

Simeon Grist, Los Angeles series:

• The Four Last Things (1989)
• Everything But the Squeal (1990)
• Skin Deep (1991)
• Incinerator (1992)
• The Bone Polisher (1993)
• The Man with No Time (1994)

“Ours is an age of enforced psychosis. I’ll forgive yours, farang, if you’ll forgive mine—but let’s talk about it later. Right now I’m on the back of a motorbike taxi hurtling toward a to-die-for little murder off Soi 4/4, Sukhumvit. My boss, Colonel Vikorn, called me at home with the good news that he wants me on the case because the victim is said to be some hyper-rich, hyper-famous Hollywood farang and he doesn’t need poor Detective Sukum screwing up with the media. We’ll get to Detective Sukum; for the moment picture me, if you will, a Eurasian Bangkok cop on my way to one of our most popular red-light districts with a Force 8 tropical wind in my face causing eyes to tear and ears to itch, where there awaits an overweight dead Westerner.”

Book Review:

Review by Lynn Harnett (JAN 22, 2010)

Sonchai Jitpleecheep, pot-smoking Bangkok cop, devout Buddhist and occasional crime abettor, begins his fourth adventure in one of the city’s most popular red light districts, where a wealthy American filmmaker has been murdered in the style of the Hannibal Lecter books on his shelf.

Son of a Thai prostitute (now a Madam) and an American father he has never met, Sonchai, with his English skills and Western sensibilities, is considered most apt for the job. And indeed he is, immediately making the connection between the victim’s books and the hidden cannibalistic aspects of his death.

Sonchai takes no pleasure in this triumph over his ambitious colleague, Detective Sukum, however. He has recently lost his 6-year-old son in a traffic accident and his grief-stricken wife, Chanya, has become a Buddhist nun. “The grim mechanical rituals of the world grind on, monochrome now, and entirely without interest to me; although Lek keeps assuring me I’m going to snap out of it sooner or later.”

For Sonchai, only frequent applications of marijuana and his new Tibetan guru, Tietsin, make life bearable. The Tibetan is not just an immensely powerful, mind-reading lama exiled to Nepal for his revolutionary zeal – he’s also a major heroin trafficker. Sonchai met him at the behest of his boss, Colonel Vikorn, who is trying to gain total control of Bangkok’s illegal trade – currently shared with his archrival, General Zinna. Tietsin claims he is putting the proceeds of his heroin deals into the Free Tibet fight against China.

Fans will be familiar with the characters (except the dead man and the lama), and with the teeming narrow sois of the city, full of vendors, thieves, entrepreneurs and, of course, girls, girls, girls.

British ex-pat Burdett keeps up the madcap pace and the dark wit as Sonchai cleverly negotiates his way around the various levels of Thai society. From fancy tourist hotels and high-society mansions to strip bars and drug dens and the Himalayan heights of Nepal, Sonchai follows the farang movie producer’s path, unraveling the demons and complexities of his psyche as he tracks a murderer.

Events scarcely give Sonchai time to meditate as he must also shoulder the burden of his lucrative new duties as Vikorn’s “consigliere” (straight out of The Godfather DVDs Sonchai procured for him), mediating the war between his boss and Zinna. Then there are the farang mules he’d like to keep out of jail, the mind-blowing new relationship with a tantric yogin in Nepal, and the ever-receding path to enlightenment.

Although the narrative has more motion than suspense, Sonchai’s winning Eastern/Western persona and the colorful setting keep the reader absorbed.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 42 readers
PUBLISHER:	Knopf; 1 edition (January 12, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Lynn Harnett
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	John Burdett
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide and Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Bangkok 8

Bibliography:

• A Personal History of Thirst (1996)
• The Last Six Million Seconds (1997)

Sonchai Jitplecheep novels:

• Bangkok 8 (2003)
• Bangkok Tattoo (2005)
• Bangkok Haunts (2005)
• The Godfather of Kathmandu (2010)
• Vulture Peak (January 2012)